Dear AR: just looking for a chance to bug you, I checked. Poe's adoptive family took him to England at about age six, and returned with him in 1820. Incidentally there was a famous pathology meeting at Johns Hopkins, in which an previously obscure pathologist became famous for presenting convincing arguments that Poe died of unrecognized rabies. Rabies is notorious for causing "furious" behaviour in animals. But there is a less publicised "dumb" rabies . There have been human deaths from rabies, with diagnosis made only long after death. There have been a couple cases of persons dying from rabies following tissue transplants taken from people who had rabies that had been misdiagnosed. Racoons should never be made pets, as they can have transmissible rabies with no warning symptoms.